<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pla Sentís, Ildefonso</style></author></authors><secondary-authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kepner, W. G.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Rubio, Jose L.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedrazzini, F.</style></author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">HYDROLOGICAL APPROACH FOR ASSESSING DESERTIFICATION PROCESSES IN THE</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">climate changes</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">desertification</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">hydrological processes</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Land degradation</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">management (voyant)</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">soil resources</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">water resources</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Submitted</style></year></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">579 - 600</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Land degradation, which affects the conservation of soil and water in adequate places, amounts and qualities, is the main direct cause of desertification. It is related to climate and soil characteristics, but mainly to deforestation and inappropriate use and management of natural resources including soil and water. The main effects are a decrease in water supply, a non sustainable agricultural and food production, and increased risks of catastrophic flooding, sedimentation, landslides, etc. In the medium or long term, the previewed global climatic changes may contribute to accelerate the processes of desertification in the Mediterranean Region, but in the short term, land use practices leading to soil degradation processes would increase the negative influence of those changes. The processes of soil and water degradation, leading to desertification, are strongly linked to unfavourable changes in the hydrological processes responsible for the soil water balance and for the soil moisture regime. These are affected by the climate conditions and variations, and by the changes in the use and management of soil and water resources. In the arid and semiarid Mediterranean climates, the rainfall is highly variable among years and during the year, and usually occurs in erratic storms of short duration and high intensities. This factor increases the risks of land degradation leading to desertification processes. In N Mediterranean countries, agricultural production patterns and practices have been drastically changed in the last decades, emphasizing labour- substituting technologies in some cases, with abandon of traditional soil and water conservation practices, and leading to the abandonment of agricultural lands in others. By contrast, in most of the S Mediterranean countries, population growth and lack of resources have obliged to intensify the use of marginal lands without appropriate conservation practices. Both situations frequently lead to accelerated land degradation and desertification processes, although in N Mediterranean countries, if resources are available, these processes and effects are usually masked by technological external inputs of energy, irrigation water, nutrients, and other control measures. Any break in these artificial measures, generally causes a complete loss of productivity and leads to accelerated desertification processes. Hydrological approaches would be essential to identify and assess the causes and processes of desertification. The evaluation of the hydrological processes, under different scenarios of changing climate, soil properties, and land use and management, with flexible simulation models based on those processes, may help to predict and to identify the biophysical causes of desertification at local, national and regional levels. This is a required previous step for a rational land use planning, and for the selection and development of short and long term strategies and technologies to reduce or to control land degradation processes leading to desertification, and to the related social economic and security problems. There is proposed an integrated framework for the development of this kind of approach, with potential application under Mediterranean conditions.</style></abstract><notes><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The following values have no corresponding Zotero field:&lt;br/&gt;periodical: Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></notes></record><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="7.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kosmas, C.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Tsara, M.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Moustakas, N.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kosma, D.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Yassoglou, N.</style></author></authors><secondary-authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Kepner, W. G.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Rubio, Jose L.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Mouat, David A.</style></author><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Pedrazzini, F.</style></author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">PART . VI Desertification Indicators and Forecasting Techniques ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE AREAS AND INDICATORS OF DESERTIFICATION</style></title><secondary-title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></secondary-title></titles><keywords><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">desertification indicators</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">land management</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">land use type</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">soil erosion</style></keyword><keyword><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">water quality (voyant)</style></keyword></keywords><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2006</style></year><pub-dates><date><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">2006///</style></date></pub-dates></dates><publisher><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Springer Netherlands</style></publisher><pages><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">527 - 547</style></pages><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Desertification is the consequence of a series of important processes in the Mediterranean environments, especially in semi-arid and arid regions, where water is the main limiting factor of land use performance on ecosystems. Among the most important processes of desertification are soil erosion and salinization particularly affecting hilly areas and lowlands, respectively. Various methodologies have been developed in identifying and mapping environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs) to desertification. Studies have shown that the various types of ESAs have different behavior on crop production, plant growth, grazing capacity, and soil erosion rates. For example, olive oil and cereal production decreased as the type of ESA changes from non-threatened to critical areas. Soil erosion measures have shown that soil erosion rates increased as the sensitivity of land to desertification increased. Loss in land productivity greatly affects farmer’s income and measures applied for protecting the land from further degradation and desertification. The necessity of elaborating indicators is one of the priorities identified by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The use of indicators can generally simplify complex processes and provide appropriate tools for combating desertification. Indicators can be classified to those related a) to the physical environment (soil, vegetation, climate), b) to the land management (tillage operations, irrigation practices, animal density grazing the land, forest fire protection, erosion measures, etc), and c) to the socio-economic characteristics (farmer age, family size, farm size, subsidies, farmer income, etc). Indicators can be better used for defining land desertification risk if they are classified according to the land use type. For example important indicators for defining desertification risk for vineyards are related to land management as well as to land characteristics such as tillage operations, tillage direction, slope gradient, parent material, plant cover, etc. Studies, conducted in areas in which the main process of desertification was salinization, showed that important indicators for defining desertification risk were ground water depth, drainage, water quality, frequency of flooding, distance from the seashore, type of land use, rainfall, etc.</style></abstract><notes><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The following values have no corresponding Zotero field:&lt;br/&gt;periodical: Desertification in the Mediterranean Region a Security Issue</style></notes></record></records></xml>